University of Michigan professor and author David Halperin discusses his new book, How To Be Gay. Part of the book looks at why gay men often celebrate certain types of celebrities, like Lady Gaga. Says Halperin, "What my analysis implies is that one way to explain gay male culture’s investment in some of these figures is to say that gay culture is responding to certain hierarchies of gender and sexuality that pervade the cultural field."

Gay activists in North Carolina are preparing for a fight to pass employment non-discrimination across the Tar Heel State. Said Stuart Campbell, executive director for Equality North Carolina, "We’re going to have to grow the base by creating coalitions and working with folks on the local
level with lots of different communities. We’ll be building a movement
that will ultimately lead to a statewide effort.”

The United Nations have until Tuesday to decide whether or not to come out against state-sponsored discrimination against LGBT people.

Rather than getting with the times and learning to accept the fact that there are gay people in this world, Linda Harvey and her conservative group, Mission: America, are trying to boycott all of the companies that scored well on Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index. From their form letter: "You are highly-rated by the [HRC] as a company supportive of many aspects of the homosexual activist agenda. I am hoping you have done this out of ignorance about the true nature of both homosexuality and the goals of aggressive homosexual advocacy."

Rihanna is a fan of homophobic dancehall acts from the Caribbean that have called for the killing of gays. Andrew Belonsky and Andy Towle ought to consider this before giving her publicity.

Not only is she a fan of them, she physically joined one such act (Anthony Moses Davis, or "Beenie Man") on stage at one of his concerts. Her enthusiasm for him has been well documented.

Posted by: jason | Nov 17, 2012 4:58:11 PM

Michael Urie was really charming in "Ugly Betty" and I was looking forward to seeing more of him. Unfortunately his new show "Partners" was so terrible I never watched a complete episode through.

Posted by: Charlie | Nov 17, 2012 5:14:27 PM

"..why gay men often celebrate certain types of celebrities, like Lady Gaga. Says Halperin, "What my analysis implies is that one way to explain gay male culture’s investment in some of these figures is to say that gay culture is responding to certain hierarchies of gender and sexuality that pervade the cultural field."

And somewhere Rick's head just exploded. I imagine it being strangely beautiful, like a lovingly composed but gory still from a David Cronenberg horror movie. ;-)

Without reading the book I can't say what I think about it. To some extent there probably *will* always be a certain outsider status to being gay because we're statistically few (5-10%) and you can't enforce personal acceptance, only legal equality. (Just look at how pervasive racism still is despite the fact that PUBLIC displays of racism have long been discouraged.)

And to me that *difference* (NOT some alleged freakishness, just a minor tweak of POV) has value because a different view of cultural norms is often needed. But being gay isn't that much to have in common with someone, no more than heterosexuality is.

Posted by: Caliban | Nov 17, 2012 5:18:14 PM

Goddammit! If Linda Harvey isn't getting to have sex, NO ONE is going to have sex!

You're falling for the notion that male sexuality is gay or straight. In fact, there are more men who occupy the region between these extremes than there are those who reside at the extremes. Most men are not exclusively one or the other.

As for David Halperin's point about why gay men invest their energies in female singers, it's obvious to me. Gay men feel guilty about not liking women sexually. They compensate for this lack of sexual interest by expressing an absurd level of devotion to them.

There are also other reasons. Gay men are not allowed to have male role models in the music industry. Women won't allow it.

Posted by: jason | Nov 17, 2012 6:03:58 PM

- Hostess: sorry, no surprise that "the bombastic gay conservative group" (love you, BuzzFeed) has got it wrong. This is truly an example of the free-market at work - and they decide to blame it on the unions, not on the gross mismanagement (second bankrupcty in eight years?). GOProud has a "specialy emergency response squad" (I didn't make that up!) that sprung into action and immediately bought twinkies for fund raising purposes. Wow, they are making a caricature of themselves again. LOL

- Petraeus and LGBT: So what else is new? I love Hooper's comments, especially his ending phrase, "I *REFUSE* to accept responsibility for heterosexual orgasms."

- Linda Harvey: So sad that she is so divorced from reality. I really wouldn't know where to begin to disabuse her of the lies in her form letter. She's just delusional that anyone with a high HRC rating won't view her rantings as confirmation of the rightness of their decisions. @Mark Alexander: ROFLMAO

Posted by: Diogenes Arktos | Nov 17, 2012 6:05:34 PM

I was glad to see that for the fall 2012 TV season, there was a show with gay leading characters on all of the big four broadcast networks.
I tried to like Partners, and it wasn't without its charms, but the Will&Grace creators are still relying too heavily on the "put-gay-refernce-in-a-sentence-and-then-turn-up-the-laugh-track" formula.

No gay person I know would spend decades with a straight best friend and still spend all day hearing comments like "Help me, Homo-One-Kenobi" or respnding to the name of an odd-sounding food with "I don't need to hear about your alternative lifestyle."

It reminds me of reruns of shows with black characters when that was a novel idea (around the early '70s) and the writers were consumed with slipping race into every other one-liner.

Posted by: GregV | Nov 17, 2012 6:08:50 PM

Maybe Hostess problem is people to eat that kind of processed junk food anymore. I can't remember the last time I had one of their products (including bread). I prefer a slice of cake.

Posted by: Billy | Nov 17, 2012 7:06:51 PM

I'm not "falling for" anything, Jason. I'm well aware the Kinsey Scale is a bell curve, but to pretend that whether the object of attraction is male or female is unimportant is kind of silly. Male sexuality IS quite different than female sexuality, which has more to do with why the "gay scene" can be a little excessive. That has more to do with it being exclusively male than it being anything inherently gay. If women would participate in it there'd be straight hook-up sites, cruising grounds, and gloryholes all over the place. In fact there ARE such places, much longer established than gay bars and ghettos in fact, but it requires an exchange of goods for women to participate. It's called prostitution and it's called "the oldest profession" for a reason. Men are just willing to do it for free because they see it as win/win for both.

But once you decide that isn't all you want, that "orgasm uber alles" isn't enough, then it takes negotiation and compromise to make a male/male relationship work. IMO, sometimes the worst thing about being gay is that you have to date men, and men (including yourself if you're honest) can be pigs.

This anti-union garbage from GOProud is particularly offense considering the shameful legacy of the "Twinkie defense."

Posted by: Jean de Florette | Nov 18, 2012 12:24:39 AM

offensive*

Posted by: Jean de Florette | Nov 18, 2012 12:25:12 AM

Caliban,

If yoú've been reading my posts, you'd know that I concur with your views on the inherent difference between male and female sexuality.

On gay men's devotion to female pop singers, what really stands out is how much we've deteriorated over the years. Our icons used to be women who can sing. Now, our icons are women who can't sing to save their lives.

We need to go back to admiring quality. Our community has been hijacked by the fakes, the low-lifes and the sordid. We need to re-claim it and impose quality on it.

I would also like to see us clamor for MALE role models in pop music. We mustn't be distracted by female pop singers who utter slightly pro-gay statements and suddenly the whole gay community is fawning at their feet and buying their CD's. Enough of this already.

Posted by: jason | Nov 18, 2012 2:16:38 AM

I really Really Really like 'Partners' it's funny and interesting. Much better than The New Normal. CBS, what a bag of dicks.

Posted by: Ryon | Nov 18, 2012 4:12:39 AM

@ Jason... I don't know why, but I have always preferred female voices to males when it comes to singing. I'm not sure why that is... it's just the type of voice I think is beautiful to listen to. It's rare when I like a song if a man is singing it. Sometimes, in the case of someone like Madonna, I like the messages she is saying both in her music and in her personal life and politics. Other times, it's just that I like their voices... like Beyoncé's.

If I actually liked male singing voices more, whether the singer is gay or straight, I'd listen to more of their music. It doesn't always have to be about sexuality or what your orientation is... or for that matter what the singer's orientation is... sometimes it's really just about the MUSIC. So get over your women-hating ways. It's really tired how you bring this up in EVERY post. Enough already. We're all allowed to like the type of music we like. (Oh, and some exceptions to the rule are George Michael, early Elton John and Will Young... and hey, they're all gay, too!)

As for GOProud offering $50 for a Twinkie... I say spend the $50 and get a real Twinkie. Might as well support the sex worker industry and get something really satisfying instead of moment-on-your-lips-lifetime-on-your-hips faux food like Twinkies. Plus you don't support self-loathing Uncle Toms like GOProud. (Full disclosure - I'm not into younger guys, and I've never hired a sex worker, but I don't judge those that do and think sex work is work... just like any other job)

Posted by: graphicjack | Nov 18, 2012 4:48:11 AM

GraphicJack,

Most of the female voices you hear are electronically distorted by the producers using techniques such as AutoTune and high-speed processing. They are not real voices. They are fake voices.

Posted by: jason | Nov 18, 2012 4:56:39 AM

In 1948 when Israel became a state,the Palestinians turned down the U.N. to have their own state. Then the Palestinians and 4 other Arab neighbors invaded the new State of Israel to drive it into the sea! The Arabs lost that was and 2 others... and most Arab countries never recognized the rights for Israel to exist. During that time, the Palestinians have been used as pawns by their so-called Arab friends. To this day, many Palestinians are kept in run down refugee camps. Their leaders have stolen billions of dollars and instead of building new roads,hospitals and schools they spend their time lobbing rockets into Israel from civilian buildings and hospital rooftops, and school yards... knowing quite well innocent civilians will get killed when Israel responds! Keep in mind that after the 1948 war for the next 19 years when the Palestinians lived in Jordan and Egypt's Gaza Strip... there was never any talk of a Palestinian State. Jews were denied access to their Holy shrines including the Wailing wall,while many Jewish houses of worship were destroyed. That changed in the 6 Day war of 1968. Also keep in mind that the State of Jordan was created in 1940(prior to that you will not find Jordan on any map) Since Israel was born, they have turned a dessert into a modern state with greatcities,hospitals,and colleges. The became leaders in medical sciences, winner of many Nobel Prizes and 2nd only to Silicon Valley for computer science. They have contributed for the betterment of the world.

In Arab countries, they have public be-heading's for adultery,and hangings for gay teenagers. In Israel they have Gay Pride Parades and open discussions on politics. Sadly in recent times they had to build a security fence because Palestinian and Arab suicide bombers blew themselves up in public bus stops and Pizza restaurants.

Can you imagine Canada lobbing thousands of rockets into America? Do you think Washington would say...Please neighbor, do not do that! The facts are simple and best Said by Golda Maier... peace will come to Palestine when Palestinian mother's love their children as much as they hate the Jews! Shalom!

You said "Our icons used to be women who can sing. Now, our icons are women who can't sing to save their lives." I was wonder what icons you were referring to? My thought has always been two of "our" biggest gay icons Cher and Madonna aren't great singers at all, but they are GREAT performers.

There are some current gay icons that are really good singers (with or without voice manipulation) Beyonce/Adele come to mind. I'd even throw Gaga into that category. And shout out to the divas Whitney and Streisand.

Posted by: Billy | Nov 18, 2012 10:24:40 AM

If there's ever been a worse "gay" series than PARTNERS, I can't think what it might have been (and I shudder to speculate). PARTNERS makes even LOVE, SIDNEY seem progressive and liberated.

Posted by: jomicur | Nov 18, 2012 11:01:46 AM

Gaza is the Warsaw Ghetto of our time.

Posted by: mikeflower | Nov 18, 2012 11:20:07 AM

"Partners" actually would likely survive if it were on any other network. CBS is cancelling it only because its rating are low compared to CBS's other sit-coms (which have been strong lately). There are other shows with much lower ratings on other networks which are guaranteed to be renewed.

Posted by: GregV | Nov 18, 2012 1:31:42 PM

Thank you JERRY P...I'm going to save that. There are people on here, and way too many elsewhere, who refuse to understand. Like Evangelicals, nothing can be done about them. But lots of people really don't know the historic and current facts you have stated.
You have performed a service to the truth. And I'm not Jewish.